You Should Pay $19.99 for Netflix

NEW YORK ( TheStreet) -- Lots of people bark that they would not pay more than $7.99 for Netflix (NFLX) .

I call B.S.

I reckon the average entertainment consumer doesn't truly understand Netflix's incredible value. Even $14.99 or $19.99 would be a steal. Netflix offers nothing short of a sweet deal, as content owners and cable/satellite providers continue to shaft us without kissing or buying us dinner.

We pay $64.98 a month; however this includes about $24.00 in discounts we received after threatening to cancel. When there's hockey, we pay $179 for one season of NHL Centre Ice .

I would cancel if not for my wife, child, sports and sports.

We subscribe to Netflix streaming for the paltry sum of $7.99/month. We watch Netflix through an excellent $50 Roku streaming device.

Here's what we watch on satellite.

My kid likes the Nickelodeon programming. SpongeBob. iCarly. Victorious. She catches new episodes as they come on. You cannot do that on Netflix.

My wife and kid enjoy The Voice on NBC. They could watch shortly after airing -- online at NBC's Website -- but I just can't get them to take that step.

My wife and I watch some HGTV that we could not stream. And, although we could stream it or watch it on DVD, there's something about just watching random episodes of Seinfeld and Friends as they come on, as selected by somebody else.

That's pretty much the extent of it for our satellite viewing.

If you watch more than that -- and you probably do -- you're even less likely to drop cable or satellite. That actually makes Netflix a better value.

Work sports into the mix and cable/satellite becomes an absolute must. I watch hockey nightly. I could buy the package through Roku, but I have heard horror stories about the reliability of streaming live sports night after night. So, we keep satellite to have relatively reliable access to hockey.

I'm not much of a sports fan anymore, but I like the ability to watch random live stuff -- baseball, the NBA, college hoops, golf -- as I flip channels. At day's end, you need a traditional subscription to do this conveniently, effectively and economically.

We're not big on movies, but that's not an issue. If you're a buff, between Netflix and other options, you're good as gold.

So we're slaves to satellite for a few episodes a week of first-run television shows, spontaneous reruns, the NHL and access to random sports.

For that, we pay more than $65 a month, without second thought.

Between Netflix and Roku, we receive more value in a month than satellite provides all year, particularly minus the NHL.